Tuesday, September 13, 2011

Utah: Part Three (Boo Included)

On Saturday, I spent the day with my old boo Michelle. Michelle and I met in the year 2002 while we were doing Washington Seminar in DC.

Things to know about Michelle:

1. Michelle and her family lived in England for part of her formative years.
2. Due to some Irishness in her family line, Michelle has an Irish passport, which means that she has a legal right to work in the UK.
3. For both of these reasons, I hate her.
4. Michelle has a finely trained legal mind. Ha! This is a bit of a joke betwixt us. But she really did go to law school and does have a finely trained mind.
5. Her home, Crane Manor, was like my 2nd home during my last years at BYU.

When Michelle and I are together, we are very stupid.

The day started with breakfast at Gurus, where I enjoyed spotting some gen-u-ine Provo hipsters.

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I also sampled the best sweet potato fries that I have ever had in my life.

From there, I made Michelle drive me around my favorite neighborhoods in Provo so I could take pictures of houses. I love these neighborhoods.

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From there, a stop at Crane Manor.

Michelle has a grown woman's room now.


There's Bill Dog! His name is actually Cody, but as with Heidi's sons, I could never remember his real name, so I just gave him a new one. That's who I am.


We caught an afternoon matinee of Rise of the Planet of the Apes. The problem with prequels is that you're basically wading through the entire film to get to the 'Aha!' ending that sets up the original. It was just ok. It was a long movie about apes. That's what I have to say about it.

When we came out of the theater it was raining. Thank you, Mother Nature. I got to see my mountains covered in mist even though it was the dead of summer.



More neighborhood tours and visually documenting happy places. Michelle drove where I told her to. I loved it. Seriously, driving around looking at old houses was one of the only things I really, really wanted to do in Utah.

We ended up in American Fork looking at these townhomes that M-chelle used to want to move into after finishing law school.

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We always referred to them as the Mudslide Townhouses because there was a, well, mudslide one year that hit the development.

I dearly wish these pictures would have turned out better. The view overlooking the valley was stunning after the rain storm.

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{There's the Timpanogas Temple}

Pulling out of the development we kind of decided to go to Salt Lake. Why not? Michelle and I are professional level driving-meanderers. This is what we do.

As soon as we got to Salt Lake, I started to feel at home. I was completely shocked by this, as I've always been a mad proponent of Utah County. But, alas, something has shifted. If I moved back to Utah, I think I'd have to live in Salt Lake. Something about it just felt so right. Here are some blurry pictures of more homes taken from a moving car...

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{This building could be straight out of Virginia.}







After driving around, after making some of the funniest jokes of my amateur career, after the sun had set and we had driven the width of Salt Lake at least two times, we decided to go to Happy Sumo for dinner. About once a year I crave sushi, and that night was one of those times.

After dinner we got frozen yogurt, then did some more driving around and acting like idiots.

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I had the best time ever.

3 comments:

michelle said...

Oh my gosh, Guru's sweet potato fries are my favorite!! Others never compare. And there are so many Provo hipsters, aren't there?

There is just nothing like an old friend to make you feel at home, comfortable, silly, and just have the best time ever.

(What is that last photo?)

Sheans said...

I am jealous. I want to drive around and be ridiculous too.

Rebekah said...

The funny thing is that I actually disliked sweet potato fries until I tried theirs. How could others be so bad, when these were so good?!

It's the ceiling at the yogurt place across from Happy Sumo at Gateway. Such a cool effect, right?